Samsung 55-inch Super OLED TV pictures and hands-on

Like LG, Samsung has used CES to unveil a 55-inch OLED TV, to similarly awestruck eyes. Pocket-lint managed to get some time with the set and we can safely say that this is the future of television technology.

The Super OLED TV has an amazingly thin bezel and seemingly thinner waistline, yet that matters little in the grand scheme of things. LED TVs these days are getting thinner and thinner, and leave a very slim footprint when wall mounted, but as good as they are, they can't hold a candle to the picture quality of this Samsung display.

Dynamic and overblown show floor colours and contrast aside, you can immediately see the benefit of the OLED technology the moment you clap eyes on the black levels. As each pixel has its own light source, the blacks on this set are astonishing. Forget the Pioneer Kuro, the black levels are as pitch as the night with no stars, or the bowels of a coal mine.

Sadly, we didn't get to look at much of the set's other talents, but the brief Full HD demo video leaves an impression that lingers in your eyes. Picture performance is, quite simply, stunning.

When it is released in the second half of this year (as told to us by a Samsung spokesperson), the Super OLED TV will be mightily expensive, but we still reckon early adopters will take the plunge; if only for bragging rights. And, by then, we are promised that the set will also include all of Samsung's other new television and Smart Hub features that grace its 55ES8000. There will be Smart Interaction - voice and gesture control, plus face recognition - and much much more.

However, for now, we're happy to simply bask in its radiant image mastery and wait. We certainly won't be able to afford one. Yet.

Our senior ed of news and features has been a tech and games journalist for more than 27 years, and has been with Pocket-lint for over five. Rik has edited a number of videogame magazines in the past, was deputy editor of Home Cinema Choice, and his TV career included stints as co-presenter of Channel 4's Gamesmaster and Sky One’s Games World.